Chapter 118
Varkas’s pupils widened greatly, and the silver-gray flecks scattered over his blue irises wavered.
However, that trace of agitation lasted only an instant.
In the blink of an eye, Varkas returned to an ice-cold expression and stared at her with eyes flickering blue.
Soon after, a dry voice laced with a hollow laugh cut through the silence.
“Do you even know what you mean by that?”
“Do you take me for an idiot?”
Amid the tension that made her knees go weak, Thalia deliberately put on an arrogant face.
She absolutely, absolutely did not want to appear as if she were begging.
“It means I’m going to sleep with you.”
“…”
“Why? Do I need to say it more directly?”
When she lifted her chin and sent him a defiant look, the sneer lingering around the man’s mouth faded.
He uncrossed his arms and slowly approached her.
“You’re going to sleep with me?”
The heavy low voice dropping onto the crown of her head sent a chill down her spine.
Thalia forced strength into the nape of her neck, which was about to shrink back on its own.
Varkas looked down at her without moving, then seized her chin and pressed his thumb firmly down on her lower lip.
“So this is why you came looking like this?”
She felt the sticky dye smear around her mouth.
Thalia blushed and sharply slapped his hand away.
A faint sneer appeared on Varkas’s face.
“You are startled by even this much contact, so what do you think you can do?”
“That’s because you always touch me suddenly…!”
Thalia, who had been refuting him with a flustered face, shut her mouth tight.
She must not be swept along by this man.
“Why do you have so much to say? I’m saying I’ll do it!”
Varkas’s mouth distorted subtly.
“If you say you will, am I supposed to blindly obey?”
At the sharper reaction than she had expected, heat rose to the nape of her neck.
She swallowed her humiliation and glared at him with fierce eyes.
“Yes.”
“…”
“You have to do what I demand.”
His wide, clear eyes narrowed.
Rather than displeasure, it was a reaction closer to disbelief.
Thalia put strength into her stiff legs and rose from her seat.
Then she walked right up to him and provocatively lifted her head.
“You are now the head of House Siarkan, and you have a duty to leave behind an heir. This is something a married man ought to do.”
“I do not know when Your Highness became so full of responsibility.”
A bitter sneer brushed his lips.
“So what you mean is that you will sacrifice your body for me and my family. Is that it?”
Thalia looked up at him with a rigid face.
She had thought he might show aversion, but she had not expected him to openly mock her like this.
Had he not been the man who had acted so bewilderingly gentle toward her after their marriage?
Perhaps sleeping with her was that repulsive to him.
Thalia swallowed her humiliation and responded coldly.
“How long do you think we can maintain this formal relationship as it is? It will soon be discovered that we are not a proper married couple, and I will become an even greater laughingstock than I am now. If we cannot have an heir for a long time, your vassals will not remain quiet either.”
Thalia, who had been speaking in rapid succession, let out a sharp laugh.
“Or perhaps that is what you want?”
Varkas’s beautiful jawline visibly stiffened.
Thalia ignored the warning in his eyes and continued mockingly.
“If you endure just a few years like this, people everywhere will clamor for you to dissolve your marriage with me and bring in a new Grand Duchess. Perhaps His Majesty the Emperor will pretend he has no choice and allow the divorce. Were you perhaps interfering with my elder sister’s marriage because you intend to remarry Ayla then…”
“Enough.”
The sharply honed voice savagely scraped across her forehead.
The man leaned close toward her and spoke threateningly.
“There is a limit to how much I will silently listen to.”
Thalia knew that she was stepping over a line she should not cross.
However, she could not back down.
She drove a piercing gaze into his face and raised her voice.
“If that is not the case, then do as I demand! You don’t have any free will anyway, do you? You are nothing more than a puppet moving according to duty.”
“And are you not the Empress’s puppet?”
Varkas spoke mockingly.
Thalia felt the blood drain from her face.
Varkas quietly looked down at her pale face and added coldly.
“I do not know what that woman instigated you to do, but I will not act as your stud horse.”
Then he straightened his bent body and picked up the coat he had taken off.
“Your Highness may use this room tonight.”
Thalia stared blankly at him as he moved toward the door.
A chill swept over her as if cold water had been poured from the crown of her head.
Trembling all over with humiliation, Thalia limped after him the next moment.
When she fiercely grabbed and pulled the fabric covering his broad back, she felt his large body, tightly woven with firm muscles, stiffen.
She pushed his body with all the strength she had.
However, his fortress-like body did not budge.
When she burst with resentment and shoved him hard once more, Varkas grabbed her shoulders.
A groan slipped out of her at the strength of his grip.
Hearing that sound, the man flinched and withdrew his hands.
Thalia did not miss that opening and charged into his iron-like chest.
At last, the body as sturdy as a castle wall tilted backward.
Thalia knocked him down and straddled his stomach.
Her breathing, roughened by that brief struggle, scraped painfully at her throat like sandpaper.
Her chest heaving as she exhaled hot breaths, Thalia glared at him with eyes like balls of fire.
“You must not defy me.”
The man’s beautiful face distorted faintly.
As if spitting blood at that face, she spat out the words.
“You said you would do everything I asked. You said you would do everything you could.”
The hand that had been about to pull her off stopped in midair and stiffened.
Thalia clenched the front of his shirt as if wringing it and pulled hard.
The trembling shaking her body grew stronger and stronger.
She struggled not to plead, but sobs increasingly mixed into her voice.
Putting strength into her trembling jaw, Thalia shouted desperately.
“Keep the words you said!”
With that ringing cry as the end, a storm-like silence descended.
Unable to look him straight in the eyes, Thalia slowly lowered her forehead to his chest, which rose and fell.
A drop of sweat ran down her temple, lingered for a moment near her eye, then fell with a soft tap onto his shirt.
She was staring blankly down at it when firm fingers touched the tip of her chin.
Soon, her head was lifted, and a face bearing an incomprehensible expression filled her dizzy vision.
Before she could grasp what it meant, her shoulders were pushed back.
“…Understood.”
Varkas raised his upper body and let out a hoarse voice.
Thalia faced him with trembling eyes.
She could see his tightly swollen Adam’s apple move up and down.
After a long while, he opened his mouth and supplemented his answer.
“I will do as Your Highness wishes.”
Even though she had finally obtained the answer she wanted, her trembling only grew stronger.
Thalia wrapped her convulsing fingers around her arms.
At that moment, a firmly condensed voice pierced her ears once again.
“But not today.”
She snapped her head up and glared at him.
Varkas continued somewhat urgently.
“It has only been a few weeks since you coughed up blood and collapsed. After your health has recovered sufficiently…”
“My body is fine.”
Thalia shouted roughly.
“I will do that with you at the time I decide. And that is today, right now.”
She felt his entire body stiffen tautly.
Was he feeling repulsed by the way she was acting like a tyrant?
It did not matter.
If she backed down here, she would never again be able to make the same decision as she had today.
Once this mad impulse cooled, she would shut herself away inside her own walls again.
So it had to be this moment, when she had drawn out every last handful of courage left in her.
“You cannot refuse.”
Something stirred in his eyes.
Was it anger, or disgust?
No.
It did not matter.
This… this was not something like love.
Nor was it passion or desire.
It was nothing more than a struggle to keep living.
So there was no need to feel miserable.
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